


Raining Men

by dustlines



Series: Post-8x23 ("Sacrifice") [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Falling Angels (Supernatural), Gen or Pre-Slash, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s08e23 Sacrifice, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2020-07-23 15:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20010919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustlines/pseuds/dustlines
Summary: The morning after Heaven fell is nothing but a stream of endless horrors. The news can’t stop talking about it: human beings (or so it is assumed), falling from the sky.Social media thinks it’s funny.





	Raining Men

**Author's Note:**

> Though each can be viewed wholly independently, this can be seen as a sequel to my other post-8x23 fic, [Under Fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20010718).

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The morning after Heaven fell is nothing but a stream of endless horrors. The news can’t stop talking about it: human beings (or so it is assumed), falling from the sky.

Social media thinks it’s funny.

In dark corners of the Internet, the hashtags #ItsRainingMen and #Hallelujah get overused to the point at which it starts to make Dean’s stomach churn at the thought of having to stare at the TV for even a moment longer. When he angrily unplugs the damn thing, Cas is seen reflected in the dark screen, his shoulders drooping as he stares quietly into the folds of his own hands. He is the first casualty, even though he’s still alive.

“Metatron held me down,” Cas says in a hoarse voice, begging Dean to understand. His eyes are wide and bloodshot because he couldn't get any sleep at all the night before. He swallows, then whispers, “Could I... still have been to blame for this?”

Dean walks over to the motel bed, kneels at Cas’ feet and holds out his arms, offering a hug. Cas bends over to put his face against the warm line of Dean’s neck.

“No way, Cas,” Dean says, because they’re working on this whole trust thing, and it’s more important between them now than it has ever been before. He keeps his arms folded around Cas’ back, imagining despite himself the wings that must now be absent from there. Cas has been surprisingly okay with becoming human, but it’s everything else — all those privately held moments of self-hatred — that are giving him a run into the dirt right now. Dean tightens his grip. “It’s not your fault.”

Cas exhales, soft and shuddering, his head still bowed against Dean. He doesn’t try to speak. Right now, he reminds Dean too much of the folded-inwards, eye contact-shy version of Castiel who had once looked up nervously from the journal in his hands and told Dean, without a flicker of untruth:

_“I’m afraid I might kill myself.”_

Cas hasn’t said anything like that in a while, but the memory still aches in the back of Dean’s mind.

“Hey,” Dean prompts, cautiously, “you, me, and Sam — we’re gonna be okay, you know that?” Dean’s hands still map out the brittle shapes of Cas’ wingless shoulders, while Cas’ hands lay motionless against Dean’s back.

“Perhaps, eventually,” Cas mutters, into Dean’s neck, but even this is a victory. He could have said so many worse things.

Dean’s knees are aching against the thin carpet, but Cas isn’t letting go, so he isn’t, either. It took them too long to get to this basic place, but they’re here now, and neither one of them is going anywhere.

The motel room and its blank-screened TV seem poised to swallow them whole, and they protect each other from everything it has to say by not letting each other go.

  
.

  
2013.05.16

[.](https://dustlines.livejournal.com/22213.html)

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Please leave comments if you enjoyed this! It helps me feel like my words matter.

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